Explosive news in LA
Posted by
Jeffrey Blyth
on 2 May 2006 at 11:17
Tags: Journalism, United States
In these security-minded days, when anything suspicious can be part of a terrorist plot, a simple newspaper stunt can have a serious backlash.
That’s what happened when the Los Angeles Times dreamed up an idea to promote the new movie Mission Impossible III. It involved just a simple idea of playing the movie’s theme song whenever anyone opened one of the paper’s kerbside sales boxes.
No, the newspapers didn’t self-destruct after five seconds. But close.
Unfortunately some people thought the little red box inside the vending box, with wires protruding, seemed suspicious and summoned the local bomb squad, which promptly blew up the newspaper box.
“We were not expecting anything like this” admitted a spokesman for the Los Angeles Times.
Altogether, the paper had placed the electronic devices in 4,500 news boxes around the city. Fortunately not all of them were detonated.
Tags: Journalism, United States
